


For The King Who Has It All

by an_evasive_author



Series: EggVerse [6]
Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family Bonding, Family Dynamics, Fluff, Gen, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:21:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28387689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/an_evasive_author/pseuds/an_evasive_author
Summary: What does one gift to a man who has all he could ever want? A question Maedhros asks himself every year and every year the list of possibilities grows shorter and his search more frantic.But Fingon is worth the effort and the worry and once more Maedhros travels the world to find something that might surprise his dearest friend who has all and everything already.Perhaps this time Maedhros needs to cross the very sea and seek divine advice to find what he searches for.
Relationships: Finarfin | Arafinwë & Fingolfin | Nolofinwë, Finwë/Indis/Míriel Þerindë | Míriel Serindë, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Finarfin | Arafinwë, Fëanor | Curufinwë & Fingolfin | Ñolofinwë
Series: EggVerse [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1334569
Comments: 1
Kudos: 17





	1. Coffee

In the grand scheme of things, a tiny sliver of star meant not much but it would serve its purpose. Even more so when guided carefully, to not inconvenience. It did not manage entirely.

For one, though the tremors, half-remembered echoes of whatever skies they had come from, had grown faint at this point, a drop of ink on poor Loremaster Rúmil's quill trembled, fell. Much screaming was to be had, though it would have been impossible to determine if it had been Rumil's own trembling or that of a star landing in Aulë's front yard.

No matter, if the gods could provide an explanation to one loremaster's failing then they would provide.

Somewhere else, closer to Formenos, Finwë's Retreat in fact, only a soft shake remained and was subsequently forgotten. In the grander scheme, it had not much mattered at all and that was for the best.

* * *

A rope had been strung over two posts, just high enough to allow a shuttlecock to fly around, passing from side to side. The four elves who played there had split into pairs and whatever postquake quavering had passed over the land went by unnoticed.

And then there was coffee. Three elves busied themselves with it. Fingolfin, who drank it, no sugar nor cream, no fanciful addition. Stoic, as was his keeping.

Fëanor, stalwart and steadfast defender of tea, who had prepared it in his never-ceasing, ever-growing quest to master all that was there to master.

And Finarfin, busy whining. No one came to his rescue and so there was nothing else to do but keep defending himself. “It's so bitter!”

Fëanor narrowed his gaze towards the cup, examining it for flaws. He held a silver coffee mill, on the table before him, a delicate pot over a short candle to keep warm, still half full of brew. Fëanor, too, smelled like coffee which was arguably a very pleasant, earthy scent. His mouth felt dry, far too much taste-testing had gone into this newest of creations.

But he would persist. Always and forever. Until his goal was reached. “I roasted them differently this time. They are far milder. Try it.”

Unconvinced, Finarfin inched away from the dreadful concoction, though the smell was still quite nice, and sank deeper into his chair. The scent was simply a “You said that about the ones with a supposed chocolate note to it and look how that turned out.”

“It _had_ chocolate notes! Brother, what else do you want from me?” Whirling towards his accomplice, the one always called upon when another voice in his camp was needed. “Tell him, Fingolfin.”

With the unflinching mien of long practised and endlessly exercised habituate, Fingolfin set his cup down onto its saucer, cleared his throat and looked up. “It had _something_ I could myself see describing as chocolate, yes.”

Fëanor and Finarfin both stared at him for a long moment. “You think yourself very clever, yes?” Fëanor asked sharply. “Finarfin, stop laughing.”

“I do, thank you for noticing,” Fingolfin told him and searched around the table for something that caught his fancy. Bundt cake? Well enough. “Another one? If you would be so kind?” Fingolfin asked and his own cup was slipped next to Finarfin's untouched one.

Fëanor clicked his tongue, softened the impatience in his tone and tried again, “You have not even tried it, Finarfin. I used fruitier beans this time; They are not as bitter, I promise. Fingolfin, tell him.”

Then he refilled Fingolfin's cup while grousing all the while quietly to himself. Just loud enough to be heard. With the bean grinder still in one hand, Fëanor slid the cold cup towards Finarfin as if to urge him on. “You and your childish palate. Worse than your brother.”

“You shouldn't be so hard on yourself, you do exhibit taste from time to time,” Fingolfin told him and received his cup again, unbothered by Fëanor's fuming.

“I liked it better when you favoured tea,” Finarfin informed his brother sullenly and turned away the cup he found himself accosted with. Again. The coffee was by now more likely lukewarm than hot.

This had never stopped Fëanor in the very slightest, as it had not now, and indeed he only pushed the delicate cup towards his brother once more, deaf to any begging or polite refusal.

“I still do,” Fëanor said. “One needs to expand their horizons--”

“Do not let me stop you in that,” Finarfin said, politely, and just as politely tried to shove the cup away again.

“I aim to expand _your_ horizon, youngest brother mine.” Back the cup went. Caught in some manner of unending, reversed tug of war. Hot potato, perhaps. Though Finarfin would not resort to flinging it around, no matter how loathsome.

Finarfin thrilled silvery in his throat and smiled to rival Trees and sun alike, “I am happy with how things are,” he said and fluttered his eyelashes innocently. Once more, a bit of it splashed onto the saucer.

Wholly and entirely immune to his brother's charms, Fëanor braced one hand on the table's surface and used the other to slide the cup over again. “That's what they always say. And in the end I know better.”

Outmanoeuvred in every way, pinned by logic and the sheer unwillingness of his oldest brother to heed him, Finarfin resorted to the one ace all youngest siblings coveted for themselves. “Mother! Mother, help me!” he shrieked, sounding akin to one currently being boiled in oil.

And from the three elves who had been sitting to enjoy the spectacle –The badminton, not the squabbling-- one turned.

“You tattle--!” Fëanor, scandalized, hissed low under his breath.

“ _Fëanor_ ,” Míriel, slung comfortably between both her husband and her wife, admonished him sharply and turned away from the frenzy that was her grandsons and their increasingly desperate flailing. “Stop terrorizing your brothers; I will come over there, do not test me.”

“ _Yes_ , naneth.” He leaned close to Finarfin, just so, to whisper into his ear, “You win this round, you tattling coward.”

Unconcerned, Finarfin chuckled happily, finally free of the terrible, looming threat of having to drink foulness such as this. “Such harsh words. What names you call me.”

Fëanor, undeterred and in the throes of his “Mark my words, I will find a way to have you try this.”

“Oh?”

“Say,” Fëanor asked, now suddenly calm and serene again. A bad sign, truly. Fingolfin took his chair by the armrests and shifted a little way away to flee out of the splash zone. “You still raid the kitchens for sweets, I recall.”

“Why, one should pity the poor cooks; Having you there, gnawing away all their hard work.”

“I appreciate it all,” Finarfin said and pressed a hand to his heart. “I would not want to let anything go to waste, how terrible to think someone's work would simply be thrown out for being stale.”

“I'm sure. But nonetheless,” Fëanor returned, to stand just slightly behind his brother. “I shall have something send over, so they might have a little less work. Smirking, devious smirking, “Some coffee cake perhaps?”

Unheeding of Finarfin's growing horror, “Yes. Yes, what an idea! Enough coffee cake to make certain they won't need to bake anything else. Perhaps I should supply them myself.” And finally, the finishing stroke, most cruel of all, “Wouldn't you like that, brother dearest? Coffee cake and nothing else, until the end of existence itself?”

“You wouldn't! Oh, Fëanor, brother, you are so cruel!”

“Well, you could simply try this one. Who knows, my fixation with coffee might just wane if you indulge me.”

Whimpering, Finarfin looked at the coffee once more and only a miracle could save him now. Miracles where not a thing easily dismissed, luckily.

The shuttlecock, without much fanfare but to the benefit of those assembled, landed with a quiet _splish_ in Finarfin's coffee.

All three brothers stared at the stained feathers peaking out from glazed porcelain all the while the offending party whined and complained in the background at having lost their matchpoint.

Fingolfin, his cup halfway brought to his lips, blinked first and leaned back again, wordlessly.

“Oh, will you simply look at that,” Finarfin beamed brightly, shamelessly, “What a _pity_! Well, you can hardly expect me to drink it now, can you? There are feathers in it.” He fished the now coffee stained shuttle out and carefully placed it on his napkin where it could drip around in peace.

“Hm,” _hmmed_ Fëanor, eyes narrowed. How unsanitary indeed. “No,” he finally conceded with a gentle inclination of his head, “I suppose I cannot.” He could have, of course, but there was a point where practical reason turned to stubbornness and his mother had words for that.

Finarfin smiled brightly, serenely and leaned back to witness the game which had picked up once more. There were spare shuttles, ones untouched by foul, bitter coffee.

“At least one of you is grateful,” Fëanor huffed and made to attend to his grateful brother, the currently favourite one, even if that one was just as mouthy as the other one.

Although...

“That reminds me,” Fëanor said, looming over Fingolfin who had been relaxed just moments ago and now tensed and raised ears in presentiment.

“I drink your coffee and quite a bit of it,” Fingolfin tried to defend himself.

“Yes, indeed, though you insulted both my taste and the roast of my beans, if I remember correctly.”

“Fëanor--!”

“What am I saying, of course I do.” A smile from ear to eagerly quavering ear, a tiger over a field hamster, perched, primed, ready. “You need to be reminded of your manners, brother dearest.”

There was no space left in the chair to sink into and somehow flee, the armrests creaked from being dug into so hard. “Please. I know where this is going, Fëanor. Please--”

“Say,” Fëanor murmured, leaned closer and the scent of coffee grounds promised doom. “These shoulders of yours look so very tense...”

“I'm fine, thank you,” Fingolfin assured him evenly and barely looked hounded, to his credit.

There was, naturally, no mercy to be had once Fëanor had decided to be attentive and caring. “Oh, don't be so modest. Come, _turn around_ , I will take care of that right now. Or I will simply wait until you are distracted...”

So busy with threatening kindness, attention until his brothers would beg for mercy, was he, that he was quite taken by surprise when Finwë caught him in an embrace.

Suddenly grabbed, Fëanor looked far less threatening, smaller by a head and now framed by colourful robes like he was now. Finwë rested his chin on Fëanor's head and ignored the half-hearted struggle. “Threatening your brothers again?” Finwë asked.  
  
There was no escape from his father's grip and struggle was meaningless. “Cake and massages, how terrible a threat,” Fëanor said instead and pointedly rolled his eyes, dearly hoping that his brothers would see the gesture and know that they acted foolish. The snickering at the edge of his hearing did not bode well.  
  
Finwë laughed and pulled his eldest closer until Fëanor nearly seemed to vanish in his robes, “Do you think I am such a doddering old elf that I don't know what you are up to? Clever Fëanor.” Lowering his head, Finwë nosed playfully at Fëanor's ear.

“Would you like some coffee, atar?”

“Certainly, thank you. Excellent subterfuge. But that is not why I am here,” Finwë said and tilted Fëanor's head towards the garden gates. “We have a visitor.”

Making his way past waist high shrubs and grasses, between trees as old as the world itself, a blazing torch amidst verdant green, Maedhros wandered towards them.

“What a scoundrel!” Míriel called and was off her seat, “He did not even write.”

“He doesn't even hear you from that far away,” Indis told her wife.

“Then I will scream louder, Indis, will that help?” She grinned and danced away before she could be pinched. But even so, she waved towards her grandson.

“Very little,” Indis said and swatted at her instead.

In the distance but getting closer, Maedhros waved back.


	2. Greeting Cards

Maedhros did not manage it halfway down the lawn when Maedhros was tackled from all sides, reached by siblings and cousin alike. Maglor and the twins and finally Aegnor and for a while there was only a pile of elves all exuberantly greeting one another.

And then, finally, the others were reached.

“Look at you, so tall!” Míriel laughed when she had her turn. “Every time we see you, taller.”

Indis, from her side of the conversation, reached up to brush a look of red hair behind his ear. “It's the air, I'm sure. Must be. You exploded in height after you left. Not that ever stopped you from emptying the pantry.”

“What's so different about _our_ air?” Míriel asked and sounded nearly accusing. As if the fact that the possibility of not being able to have their grandson grow to gargantuan proportions was a point of offence.

Maedhros kissed his grandmother's cheek until she laughed and batted him away and did the same with Indis. “Who knows? I'm glad to be here in any case.”

“Flatterer! Incorrigible! Away with you, there are more to greet still.”

If Fëanor had looked small in Finwë's presence, then Finwë was the very same with Maedhros. “It has been so long,” Finwë told him and was happy all the same.

* * *

At last, when everyone had their turn and jokes had freely flown to set the mood, Indis cleared her throat. “You must be parched, come here, sit,” Indis told him and the entire group moved along until every chair was occupied and everyone sat.

“That one is yours, uncle?” Maedhros asked when he saw the spurned cup left ignored and cold on the table.

Finarfin brought his fingertips to rest against one another, “Why yes! So obvious? Don't answer that. Your father keeps trying to force his brew on me.”

“I could hardly expect to subside on my leftovers,” Finarfin tried to argue.

“That's quite alright, I don't mind. No sense in letting it go to waste.”

“It has traces of shuttle, I am sorry to say,” Finarfin said but did not stop his nephew. Instead he searched around for the tiny teacakes, the ones that tasted of candied ginger and raisins and grabbed for the teapot. And the honey. That went in first and generously.

“Finarfin!” Fingolfin said sharply when polite drizzling turned into a greedy flow, filled a fourth of his cup and did not stop there, and was ignored. Finarfin gave him a beatific batting of eyelashes instead and finally abandoned the honey dipper in favour of tea. Not that there was much space left in the cup.

“I had worse,” Maedhros said to his uncle and drank lukewarm coffee under loud and impassioned objections of his father who looked just about ready to tear his own hair out.

* * *

It had been Galadriel who first proposed the idea of great and unclaimed lands and adventures to be had overseas. But Fingon had been the first to be wholly and completely captured by his cousin's idea.

Others had followed, some remained, for the life of discovering new things in strange lands was not for everyone.

But Fingon had gone and had taken Maedhros with him, to have adventures at his side. Fingon had that effect on people. Most of all on Maedhros, his best and dearest friend.

So it was only right to show him that fact and that he was eternally grateful to have him, Maedhros reasoned. He was not the only one who wished to do so.

It made gift-giving somewhat of an exercise in creativity when you had like-minded thinkers numbering in at least three digit counts. Maedhros was Fingon's best friend. His dearest one. No one compared. But that never stopped others from loving Fingon because Fingon made it easy to love him.

So this year, Maedhros had taken a long look at his list of possible gifts, with those he knew Fingon to have crossed out, and despaired for a while. Everything he could think of, Fingon had. By his own hands, or gifted by someone else with much the same brilliant ideas. Mounts in every expanding stables, pets in ever growing menageries, the plants both magical and strange to go along with them. Treats and exotic foods, both fruit and other, paintings of Fingon and a thousand other themes. Books, fantastical and grounded, trinkets, ships and a thousand other things.

Fingon was loved by thousands and adored by tenfold more.

Maedhros could not blame anyone for it. But he was miffed that he had nothing dazzling to present his friend with.

And so he had ventured out, for inspiration and advice. Somewhere in this wide and wonderful world there had to be _something_ could use in time for the fete that would doubtlessly be thrown.

* * *

When the entire plan had been laid out, Fingolfin hummed, hands resting under his chin and in turn propping up his head, “I don't suppose you know who will attend?” There was always the risk for someone unable to make the journey for various reasons, after all.

“He has not even send out invitations yet, not when I left the shore. But it cannot take long now, I'm sure.” The date, after all, would not change anymore.

“Then this will need to be coordinated,” Fingolfin said. “Quite a few people need to be contacted still, the card needs to be signed. Forget that, the card needs to be written first. I can manage that. We have a few weeks to work with.”

“Thank you,” Maedhros breathed for it was one trouble off his mind.

And with such matters over, other topics could be discussed. “Surely,” Maglor chimed in, “There is time for a round or two?”

“No fair,” the twins called in indignant unison.

“Says you,” Maglor snapped back. “I deserve a chance to win.”

Fingolfin rose, brushed crumbs and creases from his robes. "Take your time. I will prepare a card and make certain it is signed."

So invited, Maedhros rose and took the battledore so offered. "If you say so."

* * *

Only when he had passed into the silence of the hallways where the only noise should have been his steps echoing, did he find that he had been followed. It was easy to forget that Fëanor could be sneaky, terribly so. Quieter than a mouse if need truly arose. But even he had not managed to entirely silence his steps without falling behind so far that Fingolfin would manage to close a door on him and lock it close.

FIngolfin had pricked his ears in dreading anticipation once he had noticed them and turned and that had been his true mistakes. Had he simply started running, he might have gotten away. Might have escaped. As it was, he squandered his chance. Fëanor, with the game up, had switched effortlessly into a run and Fingolfin had barely screamed before fleeing even as he knew himself to be doomed.

He found himself in a stalemate against his brother, like little children, standing opposite of one another at Finwë's table, the round one that saw use from time to time. The desk in the study one room further was stocked with everything one could need to have correspondence and yet scarcely ever used. Efforts at evasion had been tried at and foiled in turn.

Another fruitless attempt was made. Fingolfin, one hand still braced against the edge of the table to keep close to the rim and flee at a moments, shooed his brother with the other one. “Fëanor, leave me be. Away with you!”

“No,” Fëanor called, sounding smug and looking devious and ready to pounce.

“You are acting like a child!” FIngolfin called, desperate and still trying to escape.

“No, I am _reacting_ like a child. Reacting in kind to your childishness. Now come here, you make this needlessly hard on yourself.” Fëanor snorted and hurried along the table, to shorten the distance and grab for his brother.

“You threatened me,” Fingolfin accused and fled in the opposite direction, to keep equal space between them.

“I do _not_ threaten,” Fëanor looked almost hurt, insulted certainly. “I merely promise.”

“You are a nuisance, brother.”

Feigning to the left, watching his brother take the bait and yet immediately correct himself, Fëanor grinned, “The very best, come here. You look wound so tightly.”

“Oh, I _wonder_ why.”

Fëanor had an answer to that. He always did. “It's this constant sitting at your desk, scrawling away.”

“It's having to worry about you and your antics!” They managed half a round, instead having the desk at his back, Fingolfin now had the door behind him.

In lieu of simply flinging himself over the table, Fëanor tested if it could be thrown aside. No dice. Solid oak, good work. Drats. “If you simply accepted and stopped fighting me and my obvious improvements you would be so much happier.”

Which was an entirely different can of worms. “Your improvements are chaos if not regulated--”

“What are you two doing?” Maedhros asked, standing in the doorframe, halfway inside the study but far enough out to flee if necessary.

“Free-form debating,” Fëanor said and straightened himself as if nothing had ever happened.

Fingolfin mouthed something to himself and rolled his eyes, chuffing a snort. But at least he passed uncontested past his older brother and to his desk.

“And for your information,” Fingolfin said when he had sat down in a huff and felt the comfortable plushness of his chair at his back, “I like sitting work and writing.”

“Oh, how _dull_!”

“Someone has to-- Ah yes, the card. Maedhros, forgive me, but you know how much work one gets done when your father is in the vicinity.”

“I do,” Maedhros said and smiled.

“Fah!” exclaimed Fëanor.

“Silence, you.”

Fëanor glared and pursed his lips but did as he was bidden.

* * *

Kind, encouraging words were penned, ink carefully dried and then the entire thing turned so those present could sign. Fingolfin already had, the quill went to Fëanor.

“Can you possibly write any larger, brother?” Fingolfin asked when Fëanor was done swinging his wrist about the page in broad and elegant swirls.

Fëanor blinked as if surprised at that particular criticism, twirled the quill just so to not fling ink everywhere. “Why, I simply want Fingon to see that his favourite uncle thought of him.”

“When did anyone decide you are his favourite?” Fingolfin asked.

“Oh please, who else would it be? Finarfin?”

“I like uncle Finarfin,” Maedhros admitted. To Fingolfin, “You never took us out for cake raids.”

“Hah! See?” Fëanor said triumphantly and paused, a hand, moments before triumphantly poised, resting on his collarbone, “Wait...”

“In any case,” before he lost his mind, Fingolfin smiled at his nephew. “I will see to it that everyone signs, here and on your side.”

“Thank you again,” Maedhros said and bend down to sign it himself. “I will need to leave soon, I have a list to work down.”

“Of course, nephew, do not worry. This, at least, you are done with.”

Maedhros embraced them, first his own father with crushing force so great, Fëanor nearly, very nearly asked him to stop. Then Fingolfin, lighter this time for that one was not his to hug to death.

Pleased, Fingolfin rose towards the door, watched his nephew leave and could not shake the notion that he had forgotten something...

Something. Someone...

Fëanor! How could anyone forget Fëanor? His own fault for being distracted.

“ _Oh Valar_!” Fingolfin screeched, made to flee in wild panic and get space between his lurking brother perched for ambush.

Fëanor slapped the door shut and grinned at his brother, now trapped with him and no table between them to keep distance.

“Fëanor--” Fingolfin breathed in utter horror and eyed the table. Unreachable. Not in time, at least.

“I meant what I said! Don't think I forgot!” Fëanor called gleefully and charged him down.

And then there was only screaming, curses and insults for a while. The very worst part about the entire thing was Fëanor's smugness at being right. Because no matter how much Fingolfin felt as if he had been filleted, the tension in his back would be gone entirely. It stood to reason if such a thing was worth it if Fëanor got to be so blasted smug about it.


End file.
